Retirement at 60

Q. I will be turning 60 in December. I have been working steady now for 20 years, and am still working. My health is so bad now I’m in so much pain working. I won’t apply for disability due to the fact that it takes two years, I’m told, to process a claim. I can’t be without income for that long. I want to retire at 60. Can I do that? Will there be a large penalty?

A. If you wait until you are age 60, you can retire on an immediate, unreduced annuity. If you retire before you reach age 60, your annuity would be reduced by five-twelfths of 1 percent for every month you were under age 60.

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6 Comments

I have worked since I was 14 I am now just about to turn 50, I have been a hard worker on my life and my body just cannot take it anymore. I have made between 30 and $110,000 a year. My wife works and makes decent money, I’m wondering what my options are? I have not worked for the last two years.

I am on owcp,their Dr said I was totally disabled. I have numerous medical issues. They approved me for federal disability retirement and SSDI. I opted to receive owcp. If I receive both ssdi and owcp how does it affect my opm disability when I turn 62. If SSDI and OWCP does an ofset will I be penalized by OPM?

Unless you are found to be recovered from your disability, your workers’ compensation benefits will continue as long as you live. There is no requirement that you apply to OPM for a retirement annuity. If you were to do so, your workers comp would end and you’d be paid the amount that you would have received if you had retired on the day you went on workers’ comp, increased by all COLAs payable since then. In either case your SSDI payment would continue, unless you were found recovered from the disability that caused you to receive SSDI payments in the first place.

I think it’s important to clarify while there is no requirement to apply for an OPM annuity the claimant should know that if the employer separates them for disability they have one year to apply for disability retirement or their rights will lapse (and they only are entitled to survivor benefits if their retirement is approved).

Further if a claimant opted to apply for retirement and was approved while collecting wage loss compensation, they would be asked to make an election… Meaning they could elect to continue to receive wlc and waive their annuity or they could suspend their wlc and receive their annuity… Also important to note the claimant continues to receive creditable service time towards retirement as long as they are still on their agency rolls – meaning their annuity is calculated from date of separation not the date they went out on wlc as stated in the response.

Finally, it is also important for OWCP compensationers to know that if approved for SSDI, that SSA will seek to recover any monies paid for SSDI benefit if wage loss compensation or a schedule award was paid by OWCP for same covered period.